Dream - Getting fast food and taking my aunt to a restaurant, then going to my brother's house and when I return to the restaurant my food is gone

On Saturday, January 23, 2010, I dreamed I had been at a small shopping center I think, and then went and picked up my aunt, my mother's sister. My mother had wanted me to. I had a big, white, fast food bag in the car with me. I had a big sliced meat sandwich, either beef or ham, ham I think, on a large hamburger bun, and I got it out of the bag either before I picked her up or after, and was eating it. I also had a very large iced tea in a paper cup, all of it from Arby's I think.

My aunt got in the car. There was a lot of stuff in the car for some reason, and it was fairly crowded. She was fussing a bit, and started saying she was hungry too and hoped I had gotten her something. I said that I had and picked up the bag from the floor, near the central hump and slightly on the passenger side, and next to the seat. I opened it and got her sandwich out. It was huge and vaguely squarish, as big as four slices of bread made into a square, but on a kind of hamburger-bun-like thing, mostly square but with broad rounded corners. It might have had some folds on the top. Inside it at the front it had two small hamburger patties and at the back two huge ones, and like mine was wrapped in white wax paper.

She took it, kind of bothered, and was looking at it and was saying it was too big. I had been wondering some about that too now. When I bought it I had intended for it to be that size, and thought that she might give the large hamburgers to her cats. I took back the sandwich, frowning and talking to her, saying alright, I would fix it. I tore off one of the sections with a small hamburger and gave that to her. She accepted it, still fussing some, and started eating it.

I took her somewhere, another eating place. The place was fairly crowded, and I went to a round table, big enough for four people. It had a lot of stuff on it, left behind by other people. I put the bag and my drink on it. My aunt said she had to leave, and put what was left of her sandwich back in the bag. I had intended for her to take the rest of the sandwich, but I hadn't said anything to her about feeding the hamburger she didn't eat to her cats, and she hadn't really seemed interested in it. Oh well, it felt like it was too late to bring it up now anyway.

I started going through the bag, thinking I would go ahead and finish off what she hadn't eaten. I think the rest of my sandwich was in there too, along with something else, maybe some fries, maybe some dessert, I'm not sure. The big hamburger was broken up into sections now, and separately wrapped. To my surprise I found that part of it looked like it had been eaten too, maybe part of both of them. I found the small one she was eating, that was mostly gone, just an arc of it left, so I couldn't have confused them. I wondered if part of the big ones had been torn off instead of eaten. I couldn't be sure, and decided to just eat the part away from the part that looked like it might be eaten. I went ahead and did so, though I don't think I quite got finished. I got distracted by something.

My brother and his wife came, and he was showing me something, in a place he had nearby, that was actually attached to the eating place I think. It seemed to be a combination business and home. His children were there, younger than they are now, still in their teens. There was a big section with long counters, partly in rows and partly in a box shape. They were a kind of grainy pinkish tan, and they had little computers and other small electronic devices on them, widely spaced. At least some of them were things he had developed for his artwork. He pointed them out and showed them to me a little, then went off to the living room, which was an extension of this one, to watch TV with his wife. His daughter showed me around some more, pointing to the devices and talking about them while I occasionally asked questions. At some point the devices changed quite a bit to other things, still small electronic devices though, just different designs. I was given something to eat at some point, maybe when I was talking to my brother, some kind of big puffy bread thing, maybe an over-sized dinner roll, that I carried with me and ate.

I decided after a while that I had better get back and check on the food I had left at the table. I found, then or a little earlier, maybe before I had gone to my brother's place, that another family had come in, and was going to use the table. It seemed like they might just want to use some of it though, and I had hovered around, moving my drink some I think, and moving the bag to a slightly different section of the table. The table was already crowded with other stuff, from before I had first come there. The father, a tall, fairly thin man, was talking and making some room on the table, saying that this one looked alright and part of them could sit here. A worker or two, women, came and were carrying away part of the old stuff.

When I came back later, to check on my food and maybe get a drink or two of my iced tea, I found that though the table still had a fair amount of stuff on it, the bag of food was gone, and though my iced tea initially seemed to still be there, when I moved around the table looking for things, sometimes going toward the counter of the restaurant and back, I eventually found that it was gone too, and I couldn't find it anymore. I was disappointed that it was gone, too.

I eventually left, maybe going back to my brother's place, but then leaving again in my car, still crowded with things. I needed to go somewhere, maybe home, though I think I was going somewhere else first, maybe to a shopping center, perhaps the one I had been to before or another one.


I think the dream had a lot more, particularly in the beginning, more at the shopping center and maybe even some at home. Somewhere in the dream, maybe earlier, maybe in a different dream, I was out with my car, and stopped at the base of a tall dirt cliff. I had something with me, some item I was holding, maybe something I had found there, and was talking to someone, maybe my mother, who maybe was still at home. I might have been on a phone, though I was also holding something else, and someone was with me. I initially forgot all of it, but some started coming back within a half hour or so.

Dream - Shopping at a hardware store, then riding on top of a train while someone tries to shoot me

On the night of January 19-20, 2010, Tuesday-Wednesday, I dreamed I was in a very big hardware store, shopping for something with some other people. We had to leave, then. It was almost time to close, but we had to leave anyway. I wanted to look at things one last time. We were trying to find some stuff as part of something we were trying to put together for a gift for someone. I was trying to find some kind of small mirrors and silvery pipes, maybe one and a quarter inches wide. I convinced the others to let me try one last time. Only a couple of them or so were with me, near the exit. My brother was there too, either with me there or still back in the store. The others were still back in the store somewhere.

I went along the front to the other side, then back into the interior of the store. At the back I raised up in the air, to the top of where some tall ladder-like things were stored, maybe 8 to 10 feet high. I tried to get above them, to a shelf they were leaning against, but it was hard. I was pulling myself up, trying to get on top of them. I had been intending to quickly fly along over things, looking down on them. As I pulled myself up, the ladders kept growing, getting higher. They were very high, maybe 14 feet. By the time I finally got on top of them the shelf had grown too and was a few feet wide now, and seemed to be aluminum with some small narrow ridges running down it.

A store manager had been keeping an eye on me, from maybe 10-15 feet away. I was also an employee now, a fairly new one, who had gotten into a little trouble before because of something, and I was a little worried about being reprimanded again or even fired. I walked along the shelf for a little ways. The manager had gotten up on it too, and was fiddling with something on the wall. Besides the pipes, which were smaller now, maybe half or three quarters of an inch thick, and the small mirrors, which were round or oval, I was also carrying a small screwdriver and pretended to be doing something with it, tightening some screws up there.


The scene changed, then, and we were on top of a train, going away from the city, going east. We were quickly out in the countryside, for the most part. Another train was maybe 20 or 30 feet away to the left, to the north. The manager stayed ahead of me, to the east, for the most part, though sometimes we were close to each other, and sometimes talked a bit, and sometimes we were 5 to 15 feet away. We went past occasional crossroads. Someone was trying to get us now, shooting at us sometimes, sometimes from below.

A few superheroes showed up, to try to help us. The man trying to shoot us had actually hit someone, me I think. I was wounded in some way, though I'm not sure how.

I got off the train onto a road that curved in from the north and then went east. The manager or somebody else also got off, maybe more than one person. I think at least one person got off before I did. The bad man got off, too. The train was still moving, but was not going very fast, probably less than 20 miles per hour, maybe less than 10. I don't think it ever went terribly fast, perhaps 30 to 40.


I went off the road among some small hills at the curves. Sometimes I was in a car and sometimes on foot. The hills were mostly dirt, sometimes with a reddish tint. There were two other roads here, being built through the wilderness, parallel to each other, sometimes going across or along gullies and small canyons. I went along the road for a while. Other people were there too, trying to make their way east. Some others were on the road going back west. I made my way back to the main road.

The scene repeated in part a few times, and I went off a long exit ramp to a road that the previous road went underneath, deeply recessed at that point. A few other people did, too. It seemed to be night now, but not very dark. I went left, and got to a road to the north, maybe the main one, and headed back west.

I got back to the curve. I could see where the car swerved earlier and went off the road into the hills. The heavy skid marks were there, and then it repeated and the person was actually the villain, disguising himself as me, or at least pretending to be me. He didn't actually look like me, and seemed to be wearing some kind of minor costume. Some superheroes flew in, to check on what was happening and to help. The villain talked to them, talking about what happened, telling some false story, pretending to be me. I stayed back among the hills, but finally came out, and exposed him. He went off then, trying to escape and hide. I left, too. The superheroes were looking for him, but there was some concern on my part about him going after me.


I was going away from the city again now, apparently on the main road going east, but after a while it seemed to actually be going north, and maybe even northwest, maybe toward Wickenburg or maybe even past it. I pulled off the road at a place with a few buildings, set back from the road a bit, with a parking lot in front and some tall bushes in front of the road. It didn't seem to be too far from the city, at the edge of it. It felt more like a road not too far from Central Ave., maybe even Central itself, though probably not, since it didn't actually go too far out of the city. My brother was out driving too, along with some others. I'm not sure how many cars were in the group, but he had at least one other person with him in the car. I think my father was in one of the cars, too. It was still night, and darker than it had been earlier, though there were some lights along the road, and by the buildings. It was a place I had been to before in other dreams. I talked to some other people while I was there at the buildings, some of them from the group. I'm not sure my brother got there before I left.

I went back toward the city, and stopped at a place that felt like it was on the northwest corner of 68th St. and McDowell Rd., or maybe 64th St. It was a convenience store, a place I had been to in other dreams. I'm not sure it was actually at that location now, though. While it felt like it was there, it also felt like it was further north. I talked briefly to some people there, and went back to my car, which I think I might have parked near the road. I was expecting my brother and/or father to come, but I'm not sure whether they did before I left. I drove back out onto the street, heading south.


I became more and more aware that I was also laying in bed in my bedroom, laying on my back with my legs apart a little. The radio was playing somewhere, in the next room I think, though it was still clear. I would go back to the dream and then back to being aware of being in bed. Sometimes I was doing both, in bed while the dream was distantly happening.

After a while I was more and more in bed, then was becoming aware that it wasn't real either, that I was actually sitting in the chair in front of the computer, with the radio nearby. I figured that I was laying back some in the chair with my head back. It's an office chair and doesn't recline, though it can tilt some. I thought that I must have my left leg on my briefcase, which was sitting upright on the floor, and my right leg on my plastic lunchbox. This would mean that the chair was turned to the left, with the computer and its desk on my right. It felt very much like I was laying in bed, though. It was a very convincing illusion.

My right leg was tingling more and more though, my calf, and was hurting near the ankle and some on my foot, places where I had sores. The other leg was starting to tingle some, too.

Eventually I was just outside the dream, feeling like I was laying in bed still, and listening to the radio. This went on for a while.

I finally decided that I needed to move, to get my legs off the things and back on the floor. I wasn't sure I could still easily do it, though. I finally opened my eyes and raised my head in a smooth dreamlike motion. I was a little surprised, I wasn't sure I would be able to. I then took my legs off the things, one at a time, my left leg first I think. My calves had been laying on them with my heels hanging over. They still felt funny with my feet on the floor, deadened some, almost half asleep. It took a while for me to really recover. I stumbled out of the room. It was hard to see properly, and hard to keep my eyes open. It had been a fairly long dream.

Dream - The Clark Kent-Superman movie, and the superpowered actor who portrayed him

On Tuesday morning, January 26, 2010, I dreamed a house was being moved, on a street a little to the south of where I live, lifted up, on a giant forklift-like device. My father and my younger sister wanted to do it for some reason. It was put in the street next to the sidewalk, in front of another house a few houses down the street to the east. I figured they probably didn't appreciate it being there. We were staying in a house a few houses to the west of the house that was moved. I'm not sure who owned the house, it seems like it might be my grandmother or my sister. I knew a little more about it in the dream. It had been moved at night, I think, but time passed and it became the next day. I wondered if I should try to move it back myself, but didn't really feel I should. There was a question, too, of where I should put it.

I flew around in the air, looking at the houses nearby in the neighborhood. I saw a house on a street a little to the east, a street that went north-south in a slight curve. The house had a small auxiliary house directly beside it, filling up the side yard. It looked ancient Greek or Roman, and had files of columns, and appeared to be made of concrete, with a peaked roof of concrete. I flew on, then looked at it again as I came back. I found another place with a small auxiliary house the size of the other, but it was slightly more normal looking, darker in color, with pale tube-like things going along the corners and roof edges, and as designs in other places, still with some columns out front, possibly with a flat roof, unless I've got the roof style switched with the other one. It was out in the front somewhere instead of in the side yard, maybe even in the street. I thought of how I would tell my mother about them, as examples of what other people had done, to make fancy buildings to store stuff in, even if we didn't have the money to do it right now.

Scenes from the new Superman movie that was going to be released (in the dream) kept breaking in to my consciousness. It seemed fairly lighthearted, with a lot about Clark Kent in it. The person playing Superman didn't look like anybody who had played him, though perhaps closest to the one in "Superman Returns." He looked more like the comics' version by Curt Swan, though perhaps a little slimmer.

The scene that kept being advertised as a kind of title picture, showed Clark Kent looking almost like he had just tripped, on his side, just above the ground, his feet separated and a little higher than the rest of him, making it appear that he was actually flying and had just swooped in. His long light gray coat was flaring out around his legs like a long cape, and his head was lifted a little and turned back looking past his feet. He was holding the hand of another Clark Kent, who was on his knees I think and leaning forward, his back mostly to the camera. Past him was Lois Lane, standing, her arms out slightly, leaning forward slightly, her back also mostly to the camera, but like the second Clark Kent with some of her face showing, appearing to be somewhat surprised.

I saw briefly also that scene as it came to be, the few seconds leading up to it, and it did seem that he had flown in. Other scenes also showed sometimes, sometimes fairly long versions of them, several seconds, maybe even minutes. I eventually became him in a way, although it was still a part, and he was still somehow a separate figure, and I had his powers, or at least some of them, and the movie was in some way based on my life, or something about me.

I went to find my mother, to tell her about the movie, that they had finally made it, that I had finally got something done. I think I might have written it, or had a hand in writing it, or it had been based on something I had written. I went to where she was working. She had a job behind a counter in a big building. Another person, a man, was also there. They were separated by several feet, talking to different people. A lot of what they did was apparently help people out who came and asked questions. There was a very large, mostly empty room in front of the counter. I think it had some things, but I'm not sure what.

My mother looked a lot younger, maybe in her fifties. I talked to her about the movie, happy and a little excited. She acknowledged me and talked to me a little, but seemed distracted and generally didn't look my way. There were some other people back there too, in a back room. I could sometimes see them briefly. There were also a few scattered people in the large room, coming and going. Talking to people wasn't all she did. She seemed to also be concerned with something on or just behind the counter, some papers that were laying down, maybe in a file.

I moved off a bit out into the room, still talking to her. Though the room was mostly empty, there were a few long things, sales racks and shelves, with small merchandise on them. One was sort of parallel to the counter and one was at right angles to it.

I moved to the one that was sort of parallel to it and then went around it to the other side. I raised up my lower legs and glided along beside it, talking, demonstrating to her, even if she generally wasn't looking, and even though I had moved now around to the side of the display where she couldn't see that part of me, what I could do. I had starting gliding though, I think, while still on the side where she could see it. Part of me was concerned that other people might also notice, and part of me saw that a woman in front of another counter that was some distance away, and by a wall that was at right angles, more or less to the first counter, had turned to watch what I was doing, and a woman behind the counter there who was helping her also seemed to be looking. I felt that they would probably discount what they were seeing, that it couldn't be true, though part of me wondered if they might try to follow up on it.

I left the building, and went out into a kind of winding alleyway that went along beside the buildings there, which seemed to be the lead-in to a park. It had a tall concrete block wall lining the passage. Behind me I saw or sensed some people from the store starting to follow, including the woman who had been in front of the counter. I went down the alleyway toward the park, then came back. Some kids, teenagers or a little younger, were following me, both ways. Evidently they had seen something.

I came to a section where there was another partial concrete block wall inside the other, in the passage, off to the side with just enough room to go behind it if you wanted to. It had a sloped top, slightly rounded but not much, with the tops of the blocks cut to make the slope, and a layer of cement on top I think. It wasn't as tall as the walls, getting to almost six feet at the highest point. I went along quickly behind it.

Then it replayed, and replayed again I think. I seemed to be watching it now, with the person doing it no longer me but a separate figure, an actual Superman figure, though not dressed as Superman. As he went along the partial wall he ran his hands along the top, accidentally putting too much pressure on it and pulling some of the top blocks, or partial blocks, as they were cut down versions, off. He slapped them back on quickly and somewhat roughly, acting like they made a mistake when building it, and rushed on. The kids were staring open-mouthed at it and looking at it and at each other, and going closer to examine the blocks better. He was going to repair it later I felt, when people weren't around, or have the real Superman come and do it. I felt that he was somehow just another person portraying him, though he seemed to have at least some of his powers, though reduced versions of them. I wondered if the real Superman would be mad that it was done, and if he would be mad that other people were going around portraying him.

I moved along to the park-like section and went to the right. I seemed to be going along now in front of a school. I was moving along an area in front of rows of buildings. The ground was sloped some, going up and then leveling off and maybe even back down a little before the buildings. There was a concrete curb before the grass, with a paved area that ran along beside it. The ground where the slope was had some dips now and then, making it look a little like hills. I stopped at one, but I also seemed to be watching the Superman figure again, who again wasn't dressed like Superman. He reached down to one of the dips, where a pipe stuck up, and water started shooting out. There was also a pipe and faucet back at the nearby building, with a hose I think that ran to the dip. I thought it was another thing that had broken and would have to be fixed, and someone from the building was wailing now, about it and about something else, something to do with me, and the Superman figure looked a little upset, and sometimes looked toward the building.

I woke up when the phone rang. I had been sleeping in a chair, by the computer, making the phone closer and easier to hear.


Earlier, maybe before 6:00 AM, I had a dream about school, and going there, and having to take a test I hadn't studied for, something with a lot of math and equations. I'm not sure I had even read the book once. I had intended to at least go over it some, but time ran out and now I wasn't sure I could remember anything. I had trouble finding the room for the test then too, and it seemed to keep replaying. The test became less important, though, as it went along, until there was some doubt it was ever actually given, or if it was it wasn't really anything that mattered, almost like it was some minor advertising thing, some kind of minor survey the teacher was doing for some clients. The dream was fairly long.

Dream - The superhero emulators, the stolen object, and the dog with the toy train

On Sunday, May 23, 2010, in the morning, I dreamed I was in my grandmother's house in Arizona. It was different, though, larger, and had a room-size basement near the kitchen. I became a couple of comic book heroes, particularly Spider-Man, though I wasn't really them, just emulating them, with reduced powers. At the same time I was apart from them, watching.

Time was repeating itself with something getting stolen or not stolen, something just outside the front door, something small, like a hardcover book with some little object on top of it, and a strap around it all, only it wasn't a book.

In the basement room, a couple of bad people came, and attacked one of the sometime heroes. I intervened and beat him up. The other one was holding back, partly hidden near the doorway, and higher up than the floor, near the ceiling. The Spider-Man person was still out in the back yard exercising, swinging around with the webs and climbing on things. He wasn't in costume, I think he was shirtless and just wearing pants. He eventually came back in, and was attacked by one of the men, I think the one I had beaten up. The man was fighting with him and I was watching incredulously; didn't he know he was trying to fight Spider-Man? Though he wasn't really as strong as the real Spider-Man, he seemed to be stronger than the guy he was fighting. The other man crept out and was trying to attack him too, and I beat him up, then joined in and beat up the man the Spider-Man figure was fighting, quickly ending it. Then I threw the bad guy out into the back yard, just gave a quick casual toss and out he went. The Spider-Man figure had turned and stared at me, somewhat surprised by it suddenly being over. The two people had been sent by the enemy, a man who was against us, and who was trying to steal the object outside the front door.

I had finally managed to save the object, after several times of having it stolen. As time repeated itself, I had found it there in time and retrieved it, and was happy and somewhat triumphant about it, though I knew it wasn't over, and I would have to keep watch, because time would repeat itself again.

I went out from the basement into the front room, and was talking with my mother, who looked younger, maybe in her early fifties. While talking I noticed to the left side, as determined while inside facing toward the front door, still in the front room, there was a dog something like Spats, a dog we used to have, large and shaggy, but with some gray in its hair instead of mostly being white. It went over to the right and began playing with an electric train engine, which was on a couch out in the floor not far from the front window. A lot of things were on the couch, it was pretty much covered with them.

At first it just seemed to be a small dark electric motor mounted on a small board, along with a few associated things, but it later changed to become a little train engine. I wondered if it was a good idea for the dog to be playing with it, and remarked on it to my mother. She seemed interested, but discounted the idea that it could be a problem.

I looked toward the door and saw that it was time already, as the incident kept repeating itself, and someone had come up and was snatching the thing again, which was laying down just outside the front door. I saw it through the door screen. I said something and got up and ran outside, accosting the perpetrator on the edge of the porch, although he was not the actual thief, just the mastermind.

As I went up to him I had been more my normal form at first, normal at least for the dream, as I was somewhat younger and slimmer than in real life, and still at least somewhat tall. Then I was gradually assuming the form of, or taking over the body of, a short, proper old man in 19th century clothes, with a large upturned collar.

At first I was standing there as I normally was, taller than him, holding him by the face and neck, angrily threatening him, demanding that he give the object back. He was smugly refusing, saying he didn't know what I was talking about. Of course it hadn't been him personally, I knew that, it had been one of his men, but he was responsible and knew all about it.

Then the police were coming up the walk or beside it, talking, trying to calm things down, talking like they knew me, dressed like police in the early 20th century. I found then I was gradually changing to another persona, an angry old man, the owner of the house, dressed in 19th century finery, and my hand drew back until it was just holding onto his neck or face a little bit, and then back further till it was not even that, more touching the lace sticking up around his neck, while he, slightly taller than me now, another old man, looked back at me smugly and haughtily.

The policeman, about to give a more stern warning, and maybe take me in, now looked uncertain, and was saying, "Well, if nothing really happened... Come on Mr. so-and-so," referring to me, I don't now remember the name he gave, trying to calm me down to let the other man go.

The policeman was leading him away, then, to the man's carriage, down the wide concrete steps at the edge of the concrete porch, and into the yard, which was partly paved and partly dirt with a little low grass.

I shouted, "What if I have proof!" in the sharp snappish voice of a cranky old man.

The other man, the enemy, halfway or more to the carriage now, turned and sneered at me and said, "You have no proof."

The policeman, down by the carriage, rounding to the other side of it, sounding somewhat distant now, said, "When you have the proof, call me. Until then...."

I watched him help the man get in the carriage. It was a horse drawn carriage, and it had to go over a swimming pool to get out. It was in the way, a small narrow swimming pool with brick along the edges, an outer row and a slightly sunken inner row. I watched as the driver slowly, carefully moved the carriage over it, the tall wheels going along on the slightly recessed row of bricks like it was on rails. I watched, fascinated.

Then as it neared the end it speeded up and turned to the left, the two wheels on its right going over empty space over the swimming pool, without any problem. The carriage continued on into the street, through the wide opening in the tall, black, iron fence, going away.

I turned and went back to the house, returning to my more normal appearance, for the dream figure. I went back into the house and resumed talking to my mother, hoping that when the scene replayed we could catch it and stop the thing from being stolen. The dog began to lay down train tracks from the couch, on little slabs that it joined together. The tracks went from the couch down onto the floor and turned towards the door, then going out the door and down the short steps immediately beyond it, onto the concrete front porch.

Dream - The complimentary cake

Sunday morning, May 23, 2010, I dreamed I was in Nevada, driving off to work and then, after work, driving back to town. I was in the dark blue 1987 Oldsmobile, I think. I had recently come back from Arizona, maybe the previous day.

When I left for work, I was worried about having enough gas, but I thought if I had to I could stop at a couple of places before I got back to town, particularly the service station on the corner where the road turns toward town. I didn't want to, though, and besides I was a little suspicious of the service station on the corner's gas, and probably more so of the other one. I did have enough gas to make it back, though, and didn't think about it after that.

I had read something in the previous day's local newspaper, in the want ads, about someone giving out free cake tonight. They didn't say free, it was some other word meaning that, maybe complimentary. They were doing it because of something else that was happening, maybe a special occasion, maybe a fund raiser, maybe something else, I don't remember now. I thought I would stop and get some on the way back from work. I thought about it off and on that day at work, sometimes looking at the ad again, and sometimes wondering if I would really go ahead with it, but I kept reminding myself of how I had wanted to do it. I also thought if I should mention it to other people at work.

I was driving back into town now, into a neighborhood. It was night, early evening I guess. I didn't take the turn I normally did in the neighborhood, I went the other way. One of the cars from work went by, turning in the normal direction, the people in it looking back at me, probably wondering what I was doing. I took a few more turns, and the street itself turned back to the left, the area beyond it a broad dirt area. A lot of cars were parked along the curb. It was difficult to see the numbers painted on the curb because of them. I went on for a short while, just a few houses, then decided, based on the numbers and my feeling about the matter, that I had gone too far, and the house I was looking for was way back, maybe near the corner. I picked up the paper from the seat beside me and peered at it in the dark. It was supposed to be number 75.

I parked back at the corner, in the dirt area, and walked up beside a house and looked in the front window, from a distance. The kitchen table had a lot of stuff on it, including some large odd shaped un-iced white cakes, apparently in the shape of animals, maybe rabbits. A woman was there, slightly overweight, and a couple of kids. This looked like it was probably the place. I thought I should probably ask them.

One of the kids, a boy, went out back to the swing set. I went out there too, at a distance, staying out of the yard. The mother came out the back door, and I saw that what she was wearing was a pink flowered house dress or nightgown. She called to the kid to come back inside, that it was time to eat, and the kid said something and started to head for the house. The woman turned around and started to go back in. The soft rain falling on what she was wearing looked oddly slick and shiny, and I realized that she was wearing a transparent raincoat over her dress. I also saw that the dress had a seam down the back which had separated in the area of her rear, maybe two or three inches. Nothing was visible through it right now, though, it was just a dark line in the seam. I wondered about the advisability of actually asking them about whether this was the place with the cake, and wondered if I should just leave and forget about it. I really wanted some cake, though.

I went back to the front, and the sidewalk, and wandered there for a bit and among the cars, thinking I would try to find the house numbers on the curb I guess, and maybe getting some courage to knock on the door, when I saw an old woman out there, dressed in fancy clothes and heavy makeup. She was smiling, grinning, and asked if I was looking for the cake. I said that I was, and she took me in the house. The younger woman and the kids were at the kitchen table, the woman standing. The kids might have been, too, or might have been sitting down, and the woman was talking to them. I looked over at them as we went into the house, but we didn't go into the kitchen with them, and they ignored us, paying no attention.

The old woman took me instead to the left, to a table in another room. A huge rabbit-shaped cake was sitting upright, with light brown icing in heavy swirls. It didn't seem to have anything cut out of it yet. She talked to me, still happily grinning, as she went to it and made a cut up on the head, not quite enough to get the piece loose, as it still needed a cut down from the top. Then she reached down to get something to put it in, a piece of plastic wrap. She asked where I was from, and after a slight pause I said Arizona. She was asking something then about that, some nice conversational comment maybe, and apparently forgot where she had started to cut the piece earlier, and put the triangular serving blade under the bottom of the cake, where the bunched legs of the rabbit were. Still talking and distracted, she lifted up and tried to take the piece out, which hadn't been cut at all, and a big section broke off the cake, going up about eight inches, slanting to an edge at the top. She looked at it, startled, and said, "Ohhh!" Then, grinning again, said that I would just have to take the whole thing, referring to the large piece she had broken off. She put it in the plastic wrap, somewhat awkwardly, got it sort of cradled in it, and gave it to me. I thanked her and left.

I went out into the night and the soft rain, holding the cake that was awkwardly set into the somewhat bunched plastic wrap, which went around the bottom and up the sides some like a bowl, and not too much at the top. I was eating the cake as I went, and slowly walked back to the car.

I found it was the old green 1970 Chevrolet El Camino, a mid-size car that was half pickup truck. I had left the window most of the way down too, in the rain. I hadn't intended to be gone this long. Trying to find where the door lock was, I saw that it was in an odd place on the back fender, a foot or so from the wheel. I put the key in and turned it, and a window started to rise up from the fender that formed the side of the pickup bed. I think the window in the door also rolled up. I was startled, not expecting this, especially the window in the fender. I guessed it was some kind of automatic thing that had been built in, in case someone put a roof over the bed.

I got in and tried to shut the door, but it wouldn't latch. I wondered about that, thinking about a car I had that kind of trouble with, but it hadn't been this one. I wondered if this one had developed it, too. I seemed to be too crowded also, that might be part of it, I was too close to the door. I tried to scoot over some, without much success, and turned and saw to my surprise that my father was sitting there, and on the other side of him was one of my nieces. They were both younger than in real life, and she was still a child. Then I realized that this was one of the car models with a back seat and four doors (which didn't exist in real life), and I was in the back seat. I got out and went around to sit in the front. I had a lot more room, there.

I slowly backed off the dirt into the street, and turned so the back was pointing down the street. Another car was now trying to come from around the turn, and had paused. I put the car in drive, feeling tired and sleepy, but the car was still rolling backwards a little. I looked at the transmission markings and wondered if I had moved the lever enough, whether it might be in neutral instead. It was hard to tell. I moved it over some more, and after a pause, because of its age I guess, it suddenly caught and the car started slowly moving forward.

I drove around the curve and started looking for a way out of the neighborhood and back home. I sometimes ate my cake as we went. They were both somehow in the front seat with me now. My father suggested I share it with my niece, and, I guess, with him, but I had been looking forward to eating it and didn't want to. My niece started whining about wanting some, and started to cry a little, and my father was saying I should give some to her. I said, somewhat irritated, that I would find some place that was open and get her something there.

I went to the left and found after a little bit what seemed to be a main road, though it was just two lanes, and got on it, going left. We drove away, the neighborhood on our left, and very little our right. Soon we were driving through a long area that was largely empty, seeming to be on the outskirts of things. After a while, I found what seemed to be a very small shopping center and turned left onto it. A few other cars did too, not many. It was closed, and I think I was just looking for a place to rest, to sleep for a while, though I'm not sure I did.

Then it was getting lighter, toward morning. I started the engine and began slowly driving along the shopping center parking lot, trying to find a good place to get back on the road. There was a break in the curb, but it was raised too high from the level of the parking lot, which was mostly gravelly dirt in that area, and I thought the car would bottom out if we tried it. We seemed to be somewhere in Arizona now, on the outskirts of things, though it didn't feel that we had gone very far.

I finally got out somehow, turning right, going back the way we came. After a while I stopped at another small shopping center. It seemed to be in the afternoon now, on Sunday. I carefully drove through it with my car, through the entrance and into the building and then out into a large open area, a kind of large outdoor plaza, with the shopping center forming a big rectangle around it. Some kind of local celebration was going on, some kind of Indian-themed thing, with pots and ceramics and other things on display, and various minor games set up for the kids.

I drove slowly and carefully through part of it, along the edge of it. They had some little pots and ceramic figures set up in a partial ring in the way, though, a little ways into it, and I had to carefully thread the car through them. I turned right, then, and headed slowly into a space between buildings, heading out of the shopping center, but then turned around and headed back. My father was asking why I didn't continue, they might have had a shop somewhere on the other side where I could buy something for her to eat, but I said no, I wanted to try somewhere else. I didn't say any more, but I just didn't want to try searching around this place any more, it seemed too much work, and it bothered me to be in there with all this activity going on.

I tried to go back the way I came, but found that the ceramic stuff on the ground was now too much in the way. There was enough room to walk through, but not drive a car. I stopped and stared at it for a while, and started to go and then stopped again. There wasn't any way I could safely drive through it. Like before, it curved around an area with a tall thing in the middle, maybe a statue and fountain, but now there was just no opening big enough to get through.

I finally reached down the outside of the car door with my left hand, my right hand still holding what was left of the cake, and, still inside the car, picked the car up. With my feet sticking out through the bottom of the car, I then walked on through the display, and went through the entrance to the inside of the shopping center. I found though, that the way out was narrower than I remembered. Instead of double doors set together, they were now set apart from each other, with maybe eight feet between them. They were also being locked by some women. It had evidently gotten too late and the place was closing. It was still afternoon, but might have been around 5:00 now, and I guess the place, not being in an area with a large population, closed early on Sunday.

They saw I was trying to leave and one of them went toward a door to unlock it, the one on the left. I stared it it. It seemed awfully narrow, just intended for a person to go through. I finally headed for it, thinking it would have to work somehow, that I would make it work, somehow. While the woman held the door open, I went toward it, and I found the car was narrow enough now that I could walk on through, and I walked on through, happily.